


Chosen

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, First Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 06:52:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A question from Blair has unintended consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chosen

## Chosen

by Cinel Durant 

These characters belong to PetFly Productions and UPN. No promises were made or profit is in my future. This is just a little (more) honest adoration.

Mr gratitude to Anne and Diana.

* * *

Two weeks of silence was not anywhere near his limit, Jim had decided, but it was enough. It was especially all he was going to tolerate from Blair. 

Damn the man, what did he want anyway? First nothing and now this. What the hell did he think was going on here, that he could just ask Jim out of the blue what he was _feeling_ , for heaven's sake? As if. As if that explained any-damn-thing. 

How much accelerant did they need after all? Jim still carried the bullet they'd dug out of his kevlar vest two weeks earlier. A bullet no one knew about for nearly one full day. One ambush situation with a volatile gunman, a chance pedestrian, and Blair in the wrong place at the wrong time had left Jim with only one choice. 

He was sick and tired of being blamed for making that choice -- by the beneficiary of his actions, at that. What was he supposed to do, let some idiot shoot the only person in the world he'd eat strange foods for? 

Feeling? He was feeling a lot of things. Enough to stretch across this side of the bay, storefront by storefront, house by house. Oh he was feeling, all right, and he'd just given Blair an earful. 

"What do you want to hear, that I dream of holding you? That I want to taste the skin at the small of your back? Touch you everywhere? Hold you tight against me? Want to know what it feels like to have your legs wrapped around me? Is that what you want to hear?" 

Blair looked stunned, then his face went maddeningly blank. 

"If that's how you feel, Jim." 

Jim didn't appreciate the verbal shrug in the least. Blair diffident? Since when and about what? No, that first reaction was definitely the real one. 

"That's not even one/one thousandth of what I feel." 

He would not shout. He wouldn't. 

"Jim --" 

"No. You asked, so now you get to hear it all. There isn't a thing I haven't imagined sharing with you, a place I haven't wanted to visit with you, a time I haven't wanted to know you, a moment when I could see life without you." 

"That's not love." 

"That's not all it is, no. But you didn't ask me if I loved you. You asked me what I _feel_. And to me, that's what I want, what I hope for, and what I dream about." Jim leaned in and put more of his weight on the counter. "Since when have you been interested in love, anyway? Or would that make everything all right?" 

Blair put a little space between them, but he was still inches rather than feet away. 

"You're so full of it, Sandburg. You wanted it all out on the table, wanted to force my hand, but you've still got needs, and don't think I'm not noticing. Even scared to death, you can't go beyond arm's reach." Jim schooled the sharpness out his voice entirely. "You needing to be close to me is never going to be anything but right. When are going to admit that?" 

The man was infuriating. It didn't matter that he was scared. He wasn't the only one. But he'd started this dance, and now he could finish the song. 

Jim closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing deeply, the way Blair had taught him to when he found himself processing too much, too soon. He doubted this was what Blair had in mind. 

"Don't you want to know what I'm feeling, Jim?" 

Every muscle in Jim tightened. Like Blair was ever going to offer that truth so easily. Nice ploy, but two could play that sidestep. 

"Do you want to tell me?" 

"Don't answer a question with a question," Blair sniped. 

"But in this case, the question is your answer. If you don't want to tell me, then does it matter what I want?" 

"But if I don't --" 

"It won't change a thing. _That's_ what I've been trying to tell you." 

Jim's anger was flashing and waning in equal measures, but in an uneven pattern. At the moment, there was also residue from an earlier concern, one never erased, only overshadowed. He was never going to get used to seeing Blair in danger. 

_Well, well. What do we have here_ , Jim wondered as he watched Blair carefully. For the first time all afternoon, Blair's mask was replaced by something else. Could that be . . . equivocation? 

"Can I have some time to think about it?" 

It certainly could. Not ready to call it a victory yet, Jim pushed away momentary satisfaction for the promise of something not at all transient. 

It was damned hard. 

Sooner or later Blair would realize he already had Jim. All of him: sun, moon, earth, and sky too. Jim's heart was a bonus. Call it a signing bonus. Once he'd stopped running away from the love, it had been easy. 

When enlightenment finally did nudge Blair, Jim wouldn't stand a chance. He'd be sacrificing his all on the altar of Blair Sandburg. He knew it, and he was ready. 

But not yet. 

Blue eyes met again, one pair encouraging, one pair questioning. Jim let out a deep breath and the tension was broken. 

* * *

The rest of the day could have been called one rather long pivotal pause, as hours later they were well into a relaxed but significant silence. 

Jim was leaving it up to Blair to break this one, which he eventually did. 

"You know, if you think any louder, _I'm_ going to need the white noise generators," Blair teased him gently. It was an instance where tone spoke the loudest, saying more than the actual words. 

With a warm flush creeping up his neck, Jim didn't bother with a denial. But he didn't look up either. 

"Jim." 

One word, but graced with a previously unexpressed tenderness. 

"You're wrong. Love changes everything." 

Jim's head came up. He knew his heart was in his eyes, he just didn't care anymore. 

"Let me explain," Blair said, his hand out for emphasis. "Love changes everything because it can't be any other way. I have loved you for so long, and from that day forward, things were never the same between us." 

Jim agreed, not for one moment since had things been the same. 

"They were better," Blair added, apparently not at all shocked when Jim mouthed the last word along with him. "It was a long time before I realized it, but they were still better. I was afraid to call it love, soaking it up all the same, trying to have your heart without acknowledging all that went with it. It was idiotic of me. But . . . you have no idea the things I've been afraid of in my life." 

He didn't, but it was as good a time as any to speak to that. "I'd like to." 

"And someday you will, but . . ." Blair took a deep breath and put his head in his hands. "I guess what it all comes down to is this. No one has ever loved me like that, like life was sweeter because of me. As if they'd chose me if they were choosing one person in all the world." 

Jim was glad for the couch beneath him, because something in his spine liquefied at the same exact moment his heart skipped. 

This hadn't been quite what he'd expected. It had to do with commitment, yes. But not in the way Jim had imagined. 

"Not even Naomi," Blair whispered into the silence. 

And for Jim, that explained it all. He understood parental love and familial ties; he knew how they shaped a man's expectations when it came to love. Or warped them. For all their limitations, even with the benefit of adult perspective, love made those expectations real. Sometimes too much so. And love could make them unrealistic. 

In his mind, he could hear an echo of Naomi's 'I hear that,' because he did. He heard exactly what Blair was trying to say. This was new for him in all kinds of ways. Jim was new for him in all kinds of ways. 

"Naomi loves me because I'm hers. And she does love me, deeply. But it's not a choice, it's inherent to our relationship. Everybody should get to be somebody's choice at least once in his life. When did you chose me?" 

Panic welled up in Jim, because he didn't think he had made a choice, per se. He couldn't recall standing in front of the mirror one morning and saying 'I think I'll love Blair from this day forward.' It wasn't a thrown switch , it was a tide. With its ebb and flow it manifested itself until it was as much a part of him as his sensitivity to light, or his legs, or his right-handedness. 

Oh, he knew about making smaller choices every day, every moment, with every thought. And it was surely true that Jim made most of those with Blair in mind, but suddenly he found himself hoping he'd never let Blair down, not like he'd obviously been let down before. 

"Chief --" 

"Have I ever told you how much I like it when you call me Blair?" 

That was it for Jim. Eureka! Because in that instant, he did choose Blair again, thinking, 'God, how I love him.' There must have been thousands of those in the years they'd known each other. 

"Blair." Jim said it tenderly, an indulgence he rarely allowed himself, and Blair brightened at the use of his name. "I --" 

But Blair shook his head. "If I had to guess, I'd say a few people have chosen _you_ over the years. There's something about you. And when a person belongs to you, they _belong_. It's very seductive, trust me." Blair stopped and Jim waited. "I chose you a long time ago," Blair continued. "So don't ask me not to freak when you get between me and a bullet." 

"As long as you don't blame me for wanting to keep you safe." 

"I don't. Honestly, I don't." 

"It sure felt like it." 

"I didn't mean it to." 

"What was different about this time?" 

"Damned if I know." 

Blair got out of his chair and sat next to Jim on the couch. 

"And if someone else comes along and decides Jim Ellison is his dream? None of us can say who'll love us, or when or how. Maybe I'll be the last, maybe not." 

"But you want to be?" 

Blair looked away and the silence was telling. 

"After everything we've said to each other, is it so hard to admit?" 

Blair fixed his gaze on Jim. "Yes." 

Jim almost reached out at that small, plaintive retreat, but he kept his hands to himself. Not physical comfort, not for this, not yet. Not quite yet. 

"I can say who I'll love. And when. And how." 

"I want that to be me. More that anything." 

"It is you." 

Blair leaned forward but then he hesitated and Jim's patience evaporated. Wanting Blair in his arms, he reached forward and pulled him into his lap, ignoring Blair's gasp. It only took a moment before he nuzzled against Jim contentedly. 

"That, Blair," Jim paused, caressing the syllable this time, "is what I _feel_." 

"Gulp." 

Jim actually chuckled and tightened his arms around Blair. 

That would teach him. 

* * *

End Chosen by Cinel Durant : cineld@yahoo.com

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Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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